The Policy Innovation Research Unit (PIRU) brings together leading health and social care expertise to improve evidence-based policy-making and its implementation across the National Health Service, social care and public health.

We develop rigorous research evidence to support innovation in health and social care policy.

Katy Pillai, of Big Issue Invest, explains the vital role of research and evaluation for developing SIBs. Read more>>

James Barlow writes about the need to develop a global health innovation index. Read more>>

Zaid Chalabi discusses the use of mathematical modelling to help design pilots. Read more>>

Latest news

PIRU published its final report "Evaluation of the Social Impact Bond Trailblazers in Health and Social Care". The report can be accessed here>>

PIRU co-hosted an international conference "Comparative perspectives on Social Impact Bonds and outcomes-based approaches to public service commissioning" on 6-7th September 2018 at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford. Further information, including links to the presentations, areavailable here>>

Presentations from the PIRU conference on "Systems perspectives on policy development and evaluation" are available here>>

Project Focus

PIRU is carrying out a
longer-term evaluation of the
Pioneers to help build the
evidence base on what works
best in delivering integrated
care in different contexts. Following completion of a qualitative early evaluation,the longer-term evaluation will look at outcomes and cost-effectiveness.Read more >>

Views expressed here are not necessarily those of the Department of Health.